The Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN), Olawale Fasanya, says that more than two million businesses in the Nano, Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (nMSMEs) category died between 2017 and 2021 alone forcing more than six million Nigerians into the labor market.
He explains through Prof. Fisher Yinka of the Partnership and Coordination Department of the agency at the opening ceremony of the cluster empowerment program on shea butter that the cluster empowerment initiative was aimed at reinvigorating the rural enterprises and mainstreaming them into the formal sector to cushion the effects of the economic downturn on MSMEs in the country and that insecurity was a major factor in the demise of businesses that denied farmers access to their farms among other subsidiary factors.
The Director-General of the Niger State Commodity and Export Promotion Council, Fatima Wushishi, states that the state produces 196,000 tons of shea butter annually, out of the 500,000 tons produced in West Africa, lamenting that the shea butter businesses in the country have not been properly harnessed.
Nigeria has over 37.07 million MSMEs, which account for more than 84 percent of total jobs in the country and about 48.5 percent of the gross domestic product, GDP, as well as about 7.27 percent of goods and services exported out of the country.
